High tea

Totally agree with your OP, Varian. High tea was one of the delights I discovered when I moved to Scotland in the 70’s. For me, high tea has to involve bread and butter, even if you don’t eat it. It’s a fabulous meal when you have young children, you get them fed in time to put them to bed and you’ve also had your evening meal, so you can then spend the rest of evening doing what you want, instead of cooking.

As for suet - my mother would never have it in the house! The only place that served suet was at school dinners, in the 60’s, and I didn’t like it. My mum was really quite modern with her meals. I remember her coming home clutching a very long blue packet which contained Italian spaghetti! She’s 93yo now and still trying out new recipes.

MawBe... is it you?? Are you back??

My granny always used to say, "We'll have high tea off a low table." I have no idea why as it never seemed to have any connection to high tea.

Several mentions of tongue brings me back to childhood in my paternal grandmother’s house. She always had ox tongue for her visitors. She pressed it between 2 plates for several days with the heavy iron on top for weight. I can remember gazing at the monstrosity peaking out from between the plates and hoping I wouldn’t be asked to eat any of it ?

Looking back now, if it had been called by another name other than tongue I probably wouldn’t have had a second thought about its origins.

GrannyLaine

*MawBe*... is it you?? Are you back??

She is!
Isn't it marvellous!

Many years ago I went to Scotland on holiday with my parents staying at b&b. Our first evening we found a lovely restaurant and had a super meal. On returning to the b&b about 8 pm we were served with a huge trolley of food. I can’t remember what now, I think it was sandwiches, cakes and scones all looking really lovely. Fortunately dad was a trencherman and able to eat more than his fair share which avoided embarrassment.

We had not realised they had high tea in Scotland. Any preconceived notions of mean Scots were instantly dismissed. They could not have been more generous and welcoming. Just wished we had known before

We had afternoon tea in The Empress Hotel, Victoria, BC, Canada to celebrate an Aunt’s birthday, it was very special.

Totally agree with all those who say that high tea is different from afternoon tea. When my children were small we went to SW Scotland for holidays, high tea was a really useful meal, you could feed them early, bath, bed and parents could relax with a glass or two! Delighted to see Maw back!

I have distant memories of high tea with my grandmother and sometimes when we were on holiday. Usually ham and salad, with hard boiled eggs and salad cream. If my mother was involved there would probably be sticks of celery (which I loathed) Naturally there would be bread and butter that had to be eaten before we could have cake. If there was jam it would be in a pot and you had to take a spoonful of it and put it on the side of your plate rather than on the bread. Did other people do this?

FannyCornforth

GrannyLaine

MawBe... is it you?? Are you back??

She is!
Isn't it marvellous!

Thanks Fanny
Hurrah!!!!
It's made my day.

And please, Varian, forgive my rudeness. Completely agree with your OP: Afternoon Tea and High Tea are very different animals. And I love both!

Afternoon tea has been tried and tested in many places on my travels and delicious they all were too, can't decide if it was the Raffles years ago or the Anassa in Cyprus. Though at the Anassa it was with friends and that would be the winner.

No need to apologise GrannyLaine

I wonder whether anyone who is on Twitter or Facebook could send Esther Walker a link to this thread.

I can't believe she's actually been paid for writing such rubbish. Has she ever met a "Boomer" Granny?

It was only after food rationing ended I experienced ' high tea'.Tinned salmon sandwiches followed by tinned fruit and tinned cream..

Oh! Hello, Maw!

The main place I used to buy food from in Nigeria always had fresh tongues on display. My dd was endlessly fascinated by them, face pressed up against the glass display to peer at them. They came in all sorts of colours and had weird hairs on them. ?

FannyCornforth

GrannyLaine

MawBe... is it you?? Are you back??

She is!
Isn't it marvellous!

?????????